IIPRC Members Clash On Public Access

The Interstate Insurance Product Commission has adopted a rule that could keep members of the public from seeing product filings while the filings are under review.

The IIPRC, Washington, has included the public access exception in a new public access rule approved here at the winter meeting of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, Kansas City, Mo.

The exception would exempt a product filing from public access until the IIPRC approved the filing if the filer said the filing included trade secrets.

The IIPRC is responsible for administering the new Interstate Insurance Product Regulation Compact.

Michael Lovendusky, a representative for the American Council of Life Insurers, Washington, spoke in favor of the public access trade secrets exception.

“It is very important to the industry to adopt the public access rule today,” Lovendusky said.

Officials from Florida, Hawaii, Ohio and Texas expressed concerns about the public access exemption provision.

“As presently drafted, the rule will serve as a major, and perhaps insurmountable, obstacle to our ability to pass the compact law” in Florida, Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty warns in a comment sent to the IIPRC’s management committee Wednesday.

Florida lawmakers have suggested in the past that public access restrictions included in a product regulation compact bill might conflict with the state’s public access laws, McCarty writes in the comment.

The new compact public access exception “confirms the concerns that were raised in the past that the consumer protections provided to Floridians in our constitution and laws would be jeopardized,” McCarty writes.